November 16th, 2009
Class activities for Monday, November 16
Spelling: Today was a preview of upcoming spelling words.
Cursive: Cursive worksheet pp. 24-26 are available and due Friday.
Reading: Today was a discussion day in Literature Circles. Some groups worked on chunking as a decoding reading strategy.
Writing: We read the book Fox by Margaret Wild to see how she developed her characters to make them seem real. We noticed these details she wrote about her characters:
- She described what the characters looked like (physical description);
- She wrote what the characters did (character action); and,
- She included dialogue and the thoughts of characters.
Students also worked on their draft. The next piece of writing will be a fiction piece, due Monday, November 30. Students should be more than half way through their draft by now.
Math: We learned that students won’t need to memorize all 100 facts of the multiplication/division table:
- The one family has an easy trick: the product is the factor other than 1.
- The two family has an easy trick: just double the factor that is not 2
- The ten family has an easy trick: just add a zero onto the factor that is not 10
- Half of the other products don’t need to be memorized, because they are turn-around facts (2*9 = 9*2)
Based on the above, less than half of the facts need to be memorized, and using the fact triangles can help.
We also learned these new vocabulary words:
- factor = a number multiplied by another number to get an answer
- product = the answer to a multiplication problem
- prime number = a number with only two factors, 1 and itself
Finally, we prepared to play Factor Bingo by identifying prime numbers up to 90. Homework is to complete Math Boxes 3.1.
Science: We started an experiment to explore evaporation and boiling. We boiled a pan of water, and the water was gone in about 15 minutes. We boiled another pan of salt water, and only salt was left after about 15 minutes. We finally placed cups of water in various locations, and will measure how much water is left tomorrow.
Social Studies: We learned that the natural resources of Michigan were used in the 1900s in factories. Grains were used in cereal factories, iron in automobile factories, and timber in furniture factories. We also noticed that factories were built as close to the natural resource as possible, but also near people because of the need for workers and customers.
- Yellow magnets: 0
- Orange magnets: 0
- Red magnets: 0
- STAR Awards: 0
- Magnets moved this week (goal: 10): 0
Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at SnapGrades to see if your student moved their magnet. Need help with SnapGrades?
Notes:
- Need to make, change or check your Fall Parent Teacher Conference time? See here.
- Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
- View grades, assignments, and attendance at SnapGrades.
Our Mission:
Every student in Room 130 leaves improved and prepared for 5th grade.
